Illumination | Fall 2007

To satisfy these agencies' requirements for ensuring safety, researchers first conducted a pilot study involving about two dozen healthy people near Cape Town. The study found that the Sutherlandia pills used by many South Africans had no discernible harmful effects.

With those results in hand, Folk and his colleagues have the green light to conduct the first randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial of an African traditional medicine in HIV-infected adults. The trial was announced with much fanfare in Durban on August 30 at a news conference that included the head of the Medical Research Council, the provincial Minister of Health, physicians, traditional healers and scientists.

Johnson, a professor at the University of the Western Cape, UWC, heads the university's South African Herbal Science and Medicine Institute. It was a logical site for co-locating TICIPS because of MU's long-standing relationship with UWC. In a conference room at the institute, Johnson and Folk -- sipping Rooibos tea, a South African herbal brew internationally touted for its health benefits -- recounted the history of the cooperative effort that led to the clinical trial.

"In Africa, traditional medicines and healing practices were repressed for years by colonial powers, for they were considered to be witchcraft," says Folk. "Only with the loss of that power has the repression of traditional medicine been lifted."

MARKET DAYS: A traditional healer and "muthi" seller at a crowded market in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal.

Africans often use traditional medicines because they have only limited access to Western pharmaceuticals, he adds. In some communities, people are left to self-medicate, acquiring traditional plants and other remedies on their own with only occasional visits to local healers.

"Even people being treated by Western-trained physicians continue to treat themselves with traditional medicines, and in some cases, to see traditional healers," says Folk. "Understanding this will be a huge factor in the sustainability of antiretroviral treatments, which are likely to be affected by the traditional medicines."

After obtaining a planning grant for their studies, the TICIPS group was, in October 2005, awarded one of two major "international research center" grants from the National Institutes of Health's National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. The $4.4 million, four-year grant aims to help TICIPS determine whether traditional medicines are, according to the proposal, "safe and beneficial to the health and wellbeing of the African public using traditional medicines."

The researchers say the funding will also bolster South Africa's research capacity, while helping to preserve "systems of traditional and indigenous knowledge," and the nation's rich biodiversity. Today there are 15 South African researchers involved with TICIPS and an equal number from the United States.

South Africa has a long tradition of healers, from the ancient Bushmen to the powerful Zulu and Xhosa sangomas -- practitioners of herbal medicine and divination who still have great influence in some communities. Unlike traditional medicine in China and India, few of the African remedies have been preserved in writing. What is known has instead been passed down via oral tradition from healer to healer.

Today there are vast traditional medicine markets, called "muthi" markets, in big cities. While some physicians regard forms of traditional healing methods as quackery, there are plenty of precedents supporting the effectiveness of plants used by traditional healers.

Published by the Office of Research.